MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt Motherboard Review

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

Courtesy of MSI

With the Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt, MSI took an award winning design and tweaked it to bring an affordable Thunderbolt-based solution to the masses without sacrificing on quality or performance. We put this board through our grueling battery of tests to validate the board's performance promises. The MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt can be found at your favorite retailer for the reasonable price of $169.99.

Courtesy of MSI

The Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt sports a simple design and layout with some of the bells and whistles found on the higher priced boards omitted to keep the feature set intact and the price to a minimum. MSI includes the following features in the Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt's design: SATA 2 and SATA 3 ports; a Realtek GigE NIC; three PCI-Express x16 slots for up to tri-card support; USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports; and a single Thunderbolt port in the rear panel. For an in-depth overview on Thunderbolt technology and its advantages over other interconnect technologies, please see our review here.

I bought this board when I built my system last Christmas and I am very happy with it. I am not using the Thunderbolt port at this point, but I wanted my computer to be ready for when Thunderbolt is being used more.

I am building a pc and there are a number of cables from the front panel of the pc case (usb, pc power etc). I can find all the ports to connect these cables to on the motherboard (MSI Z77A-G45) except the SD/MMR cable. Do you know where this connects to on this motherboard?